Roger Simon Blog - Looking for Mr. Good MacGuffin
Way back when I first read the Byron York article, reporting that a large number of important Saudis, friends and relatives of the royal family and Bin Laden (same thing), had been allowed to leave the US without investigation immediately following 9/11, I thought--Wow, there's the MacGuffin for my next mystery! I scribbled down a rough outline and sent it to my agent in New York who was notably unimpressed. Thank God, because lo-and-behold, the true Mr. Big behind this has already been revealed (long before any novel would have been published) as none other than... Richard Clarke! (via JustOneMinute) I could never have come up with anything better than that.
But all is not lost, this morning Debkafile--the thriller writer's best friend--is reporting a veritable cesspool of evil double-dealing retrieved by American forces during those document searches in Baghdad. Apparently, a huge percentage of the Egyptian government, military and media had been bribed (with UN Oil-for-Food money, of course, in any good novel!) by Iraqi intelligence and were essentially working for Iraq. This was so pervasive that plans for joint Egyptian-American war games were download to Iraqi computers. Virtually the entire Arab League seems to have been under contract to Saddam, with Russian and Czech diplomats thrown into the bargain. There's even a Mata Hari in the story, the wife of an important Egyptian diplomat. Don't know how good-looking she is, but I can promise in my version she'd be sensational (Selma Hayek?--ed. She's Latina. Never mind.).
Naturall, Mubarek--whose biggest concern is his son's acceding to his throne--is mightily disturbed. Cairo prisons are filling up (good scenes there!). In all, not a bad book, and now that Edward Said has passed from the scene, I wouldn't be so easily accused from "Orientalism."
But wait, there's more. We all recall the theory that the missing WMDs are in Syria. I blogged in January about a Syrian dissident named Nayouf living in Paris who had many interesting things to say about this, including detailed maps, bank accounts, etc. Well, Mr. Nayouf has been robbed and his CD ROMS (with all those details) stolen. By whom? According to this article, (hat tip: Franco Aleman) the DST (French intelligence). Not surprisingly, they deny it, while at the same time calling Nayouf into their office and asking for his computer password. (Not very good writing, fellas. Too dumb. The readers would dismiss it.) Furthermore, Nayouf faces possible extradition back to his homeland where, as we again all know, dissidents are not exactly welcome. He might as well go straight to one of those Cairo prisons. And again not surprisingly, some of the information on the missing CD ROMS concerned a fund traceable to Iraq being setup for the reelection of a certain fellow named Jacques. A perfect plot, no? But alas too obvious. What can I say? I'll have to keep looking. |
